Run Away To Wonderland
by FreakShowWalking
Summary: An AU piece about Nina and Rachel moving into a small town and creating a life for themselves there. -Rachel/Nina-.


This a very AU "happily ever after" piece. I like it well enough, though it's nothing like other pieces I want to write for these two.

Please read and review~

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words, everything else (the characters, world etc.) belongs to the ALPHAS 'behind the scenes' team (writers, creators, actors etc.).

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><p>Out in the sticks, somewhere between no and where, there lies the smallest of towns. Sharville. A quiet, happy, and mostly self-reliant place, the residents are a content bunch who enjoy annual events such as the school's prom and the Garlyn's summer barbecue and every so often a group of the younger, rowdier crowd will get together and charm themselves a day's ownership of the minibus so they can make the journey to the big city many miles away. Sometimes that journey doesn't always got to plan and various parents will pile into a car to find themselves fixing tire punctures, lecturing on how street fights rarely get a person places and why were they drinking in the first place, taking home kids who definitely have more bags than what they were carrying than when they left town earlier in the day. Nowadays people are often moving away for a bigger town, better job, education, love, excitement. Rarely do people move in.<p>

After a long time standing, routine passing day in day out and watching time go by, the community is celebrating an influx of new blood. A new doctor and his sister, a family with the sweetest twins, two young women - they all arrive over a period of a few months, bringing new smiles and talents and gossip with them. Every is overjoyed at the new doctor and his pretty sister, how they soon fit in with the established doc even if they don't socialize with the rest of the town too often and the girl is prone to fits of oddness, the family quickly make many friends after attending church a few times and having the children participate in playdates, but it is the two young women who really cause tongues to wag as the year's summer draws to a close and the chill of autumn creeps in. There's an air of mystery to them that outdoes that of even the very young couple who stayed only for weeks before a women who looked like she'd seen too much came and drove them away; the boy had had an obsession with technology and the girl was stranger than even the doctor's sister, with an almost robotic quality. A sort of secret pool has developed with some of Sharville's residents and Nina Theroux and Rachel Pirzad are the subjects of much of the speculation.

They share a house, second from the end of the road and three houses from Elizabeth Ferrow who continually bombards them with invitations of dinner and a chat. It's a modest place like much of Sharville, two bedrooms with a soon to be thriving flower patch if the younger woman, Rachel, has her way with things. Mattie Cord says they both act a little weird at times, likes to joke that there's something about the town that attracts interesting (some would say insane) folk. Mattie also says that Rachel likes to hold Ms Theroux's hand, keeps trying to win a certain bet in the pool with his tale of how he was walking down the street one time and happened to look by their window to see an upset Rachel cling to Ms Theroux as if she were the one thing holding her to the Earth and how maybe they looked more than friends. Then there's always the talk of how Ms Pirzad will smile at all and sundry, ask you to call her Rachel, but melt herself away during conversations, as if she doesn't quite know how to fit in or when to speak, of how she reminds the people of the doctor's sister with how she seems to get lost in life with the birdsong or a sunset or her flowers. Of how Ms Theroux is probably just as nice but still nobody calls her Nina, of how she does talk but does so carefully as if she were afraid the words might shatter as soon as she says them, as if she were a keynote speaker or a hypnotist, of how she works a modest job in the local shop whilst Rachel works the library shifts and the fact that every so often out of the blue she'll give Rachel some fancy gift and that one time she stopped Darryl White punching poor John Cole because he might've kissed Darryl's girl.

Soon people have all but forgotten the young couple who came and went like a mayfly December romance, and over autumn the new folk have settled so good they're just folk now. The doctor has proven himself very adept at his job, and that younger sister of his is dancing merrily through the town green when they're out together, the family is putting in appearances at many parties with their troublemaking little ones, and Rachel and Ms Theroux are growing more relaxed (the people are even calling her Nina now and receiving gracious looks in return). Mattie Cord continues his speaking on how they make a couple pretty as a picture, and Elizabeth is on his side now as she shoots them knowing looks and now the secret pool is smaller and the speculation isn't 'if' it's 'when'. Rachel's flower patch is looking hopeful, Nina's gotten herself promoted to a better job, they go to dinners sometimes, have a small circle of friends (Rainey Yates, Rachael Jones, Phoebe Kowalski are the people able to get the best stories out of them) and more people notice hand holding and lips to cheeks during the town's quietest moments.

It was the next spring when many things were laid to rest about the pair. After a storybook Christmas complete with snow and new town decorations Nina put up with the help of a friend who was better with technology then anybody else who'd passed through the town (she equally repulsed and intrigued the crowd who had appeared to help and watch, tattoos and unkempt hair at odds with her dazzling smile and the skills she showed off around Nina and Rachel); there were New Year's celebrations missing only the pair of young women who'd come to call the place home. Apparently they had a quite celebration at home, quite how that ended was once again got the rumour mill going (along with talk of Darryl White actually punching John Cole because this time he had kissed his girl, and some chattering on how the Doctor and his sister had sat down to an afternoon picnic with Rainey Yates and Rainey thinking they were a lovely but strange fitting image together with not-quite touches and too many touches and wistful thoughts on the sky and the stars). Not a few days after that New Year's there was Rachel and Nina outside the shop at the town green, smirking and laughing and something about bar-hopping to match Nina's old adventures with a friend. Then, a kiss (soft and quick, but definitely a kiss) and after that several others. Sometimes they were passionate and the two would get lost in each other and blushes were caused, mostly they were the fond kisses of lovers who had the world at their feet and each other in their arms.

Sharville is the smallest of towns. Out in the sticks and with more than its share of bizarre people and occurrences; it has beautiful sunsets, the pretties of town greens and within years will be able to call itself self-reliant. Still plenty of people make their way to the bigger cities and some stay, but there's less moving away for now. The young man doctor has hopes that he might see his sister go to this year's school prom, there are several more kids running around people's legs, and the secret pool is still going. The question on every body's lips now is 'when'. Rachel talks of a summer date, worrying about getting everything ready in time and sending out invitations, Nina just gazes at her as if there's nothing else in the world and says not to worry, she's been asking around and the everyone is certain they could pitch in and get everything ready for a spring wedding.

Sharville isn't much but it's home, and nobody in the town is particularly important even though they all stand out in their own little ways but that's how they all prefer it.


End file.
